The one and only Eli’s Cheesecake, considered a Chicago food icon, could be the largest specialty cheesecake bakery in the country

One of the country’s reigning snack makers, Snak King recently acquired C.J. Vitner and now has a second production facility in Freeport, Ill., that it expanded and upgraded with new equipment and at least 80,000 sq. ft. of warehouse space.

Decadent and delicious, cookies, brownies and other items from The Christie Cookie Co., Nashville, Tenn., are practically irresistible.

Not satisfied with the ingredients in many crunchy snacks on the market, Simply 7 Snacks, Houston, went into crunch time

Labriola Baking Co., an automated/artisan bakery in Alsip, Ill., seems to be expanding constantly, thanks to the efforts of ‘Chief Dough Boy’ and CEO Rich Labriola and his staff. Business has grown at double-digit rates, allowing for a move to a spacious, 175,000-sq.ft. production facility and the opening of a hot-spot bakery café. It’s latest project? Pretzel bread.

Axium Foods, known best for private-label, corn-based snacks, launches its own brand of enhanced-nutrition tortilla chips of a different color, Mystic Harvest Purple Corn Tortilla Chips. Loaded with healthful antioxidants, the chips are not only eye-catching, they have a tasty flavor and crunch. 

Serving a substantial portion of the Southeast, including the Five Guys hamburger restaurant chain, Masada Bakery has a deep commitment to customer service, quality standards and an ability to flex with a major growth curve in a tough economy. It’s for these and other reasons that we named it our 2012 Wholesale Baker of the Year.

Not many things these days can truly be called “something new under the sun.” But Frito-Lay North America’s snack-processing plant in Casa Grande, Ariz. is one of them. Opened in 1984, the plant is possibly the most sustainable facility of its kind in the U.S. Combining sustainability for the future, a learning site and snack production, the facility currently serves a seven-state snack distribution network on a sprawling 280 acres in the Sonoran Desert. Occupying 170,000 sq. ft. of total space, with 160,000 sq. ft. under one roof, the Casa Grande plant is part of Frito-Lay’s

Be they kettle-cooked, baked, fried, formed and even puffed, potato chips are still gold medal winners in the snack race.